21st Century Learning and Teaching

Mac Attacks: OS X botnets

Despite efforts by Apple to lock down the Mac operating system, we continue to see malicious software being pushed via torrents and pirated software packages. The increasing popularity of Mac OS X devices is turning heads in the criminal world, making it more appealing to develop malware for this platform.

The increasing popularity of #MacOS X devices makes it more appealing to the #criminal world to develop #malware
Tweet
The closed-by-default ecosystem makes it harder for this malware to successfully take hold of the platform, but there remains a subsection of users who'll gladly disable Mac OS X security measures – especially people who use pirated software. This means that those looking to hijack OS X systems for a variety of reasons know that they simply need to bundle their malware with desirable software (probably in the form of a key generator) to enjoy widespread success.

Due to widespread beliefs about the security of the OS X platform, these systems are also unlikely to have an antimalware solution installed that will flag the infection so once the malware is installed, so it's likely to go unnoticed for a very long time.

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/apple-mac-ios4-ipad-iphone-and-in-security